Twitter, LinkedIn play role in finding a job, displaying your tech smarts - Tampa Bay Business Journal:

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For years, I have been preaching a job search strategyu promoting the thought that if you trave allavenues simultaneously, you are more likelg to find your destination. At no time has this approachn been more critical than today with so many peopld lookingfor work. Although we seem to have no problen accepting the concept of reinventingour images, therre exists a large group of candidates who turn away from more intimidatinyg unfamiliarities. Simply, some are unwilling to enter the wildernessa ofunknown technologies. Baby boomerz are most often risk-averse when it comes to job search thereby fulfilling the prophecy ofcareet obsolescence.
It is far more difficult for a CFO to admitthe doesn’t use Twitter because he’d expected to know what it is. And I meet candidates dailty who assure me they are linkes inat church, though they’ll sheepishly acknowledge that’d not what I asked. If your repliea are “what’s that?” or “not yet,” then you are dangerouslh stalling yourjob search. Connecting to colleagues online brings benefits to job yet many harbor fearss so theystay I, too, was afraid of new technologieds because I didn’t want to face failure.
But once I begann to discover job opening s on tech toolsthat didn’t exist in 2005, I couldn’ afford to be the one excluded. For me, these are most LinkedIn (linkedin.com) has more than 35 million memberds in more than140 industries. Most are adultx and employed. Executives from all Fortune 500 companies areon LinkedIn. Most have disclosed what they do andwhers they’ve worked in the past. To job seekersd looking to researcha company’s decision look no further than LinkedIn. It can offerf great information forthe interview.
But it is as importan t to be seen, as it is to be able to locatee and learn about If a human resources officer wantss to research a prospective executivebut doesn’ see him on she may feel he won’t be on the leadingy edge. With LinkedIn, you can join discussion groups, answert questions submitted by PresidentBarack Obama, spreax the word that you’re in the job marketr (no stigma if done properly) and secure endorsementse from your colleagues. It is imperative that you createda profile. Also, I recommend a professionallyhdone head-and-shoulders photo accompany it. A health-care company from Albany, N.Y.
, recentlyh called my firm in its searchy for a sales We had a great candidats who had retained us for coaching earliedrthat day. Not actively job hunting, she had no and when I called the company they almost passeddon her. Getting creative, I suggested the employere review and accept herLinkedInm profile. The following day they met. We caughg up with creating her which is farmore compelling, but a LinkedIm presence opened the door. Twitter was born just three years ago from the genius of two youny men inSan Francisco. Unlike LinkedIn, Twitter is a living entit reminiscent of the original Web chat room with aslight delay.
Withih the Twitter communities, those with commonality of purposee and motive tendto congregate. When you sign up with you secure a scree name and can use it to post and receive messages to a networkof contacts. Instead of sendingv a dozen e-mails or text messages, you send one messagw to your Twitter account, and the servicr distributes the communication to your Members use Twitter toorganize gatherings, carry on a group conversation, or send a quick You selectively follow the folkzs who provide valuable information to your job search and others inevitably follow you.
While I find it enjoyabler to follow members ofthe media, my sole purpose for participatingf is to harvest job openings for my clients. Theree are numerous organizations to folloaw that can be segmented by I am most intriguedby @job angels, @startuphire. I find who to follo w by scoping out the home pages of colleagues followinv those who are likely to tweet either sage advice orjob openings. Durin a May seminar, an executivr recruiter from Atlanta helped train our candidates onphone interviewing. Spending 10 minutes with each job seeker, she provided a critique on communication skillsand messaging.
We met on Twittetr and have forged an alliance out of common No doubt, this is only one storuy of collaboration what could be more fulfillin for the isolated job seeker. Some word of caution: Twitter can be very casua and, should you engage with folks in enjoyablreconversation alone, you might be think that no one else will read your That would be a mistake. Much like instant messaging blogs, and LinkedIn anything on Twitter is stored in some permanentInternetf warehouse. Data security folks have mentioned blockinb andprivacy devices, but I woulrd never take the chance.